Thoughts on UFC 84 part 2

Lyoto Machida is the most technical light heavyweight MMA fighter in the world. His performance Saturday night was so thoroughly dominant that it’s very difficult to think of anyone in the light heavyweight division that would be favored in a fight against him.

That being said, the thing that excites me the most about Machida is thinking about the kind of performance it’s going to take to beat him.

To beat Machida is going to take a fighter that is more technical than he is, can you imagine? Or a fighter that is so aggressive and so strong that he is capable of piercing Machida’s seemingly impenetrable defense and really hurting him.

Either type of performance is going to be one for the ages.

Ortiz is one of the strongest (strength wise) in the division and besides a couple submission attempts at the end of the fight he looked utterly hapless against “The Dragon.”

Ortiz didn’t do anything to prove he still has what it takes to compete at the highest levels of MMA. Sure, the submission attempts were great, but it takes a lot more than 5 seconds of submission attempts to be a champion.

What’s next for these two?

It’s time for Machida to get his shot at the belt. Let’s hope the UFC matches him up with the winner of Griffin/Jackson as soon as possible.

As far as Ortiz goes, he needs to get out of the UFC. I believe the best case scenario for Ortiz is that he signs with EliteXC. EliteXC could feed him a couple sheep like they’re doing with Kimbo and set up a heavyweight title fight between Kimbo and Ortiz. What this fight lacks in skill it would make up for in star power.

The longer Kimbo goes undefeated the louder the clammer will be for him to fight someone real and despite Ortiz being past his prime, he is definitely real.

This fight went down exactly as I thought it would. Despite landing a couple of monster head kicks, Mendes was clearly out of his league.

Once the fight went to the ground Silva made quick work of Mendes with some great ground and pound.

Out of the top handful of up and coming light heavyweight title contenders Silva is my favorite to watch. He’s still a little rough around the edges, but now that he’s training with American Top Team I have no doubt that his game will continue to improve and be sharper every time out.

What’s next for these two?

Silva is still a couple fights away from getting a shot at the title. Like I mentioned in thoughts on UFC 84 part 1, I would love to see a Wanderlei Silva vs. Thiago Silva fight.

As far as Mendes goes, who cares.

Wilson Gouveia vs. Goran Reljic (Fight of the Night)

Result: Reljic defeats Gouveia by TKO (strikes) at 3:15 of round 2.

It’s funny how often the no name fights turn out to be the better fights of the night.

This fight earned fight of the night honors and it was well deserved. The back and forth style of the action made it one that I can’t wait to watch again.

Gouveia came out strong, having success with his low kicks, but got away from them as the fight went on. I believe if he would have continued to chop Reljic down with those kicks he would have lasted a lot longer.

Gouveia just got sloppy with his hands and Reljic caught him. I would like to see both of these guys fight again.

What’s next for these two?

Both these fighters are residing pretty low in the pecking order of their division. They both need to try and get the best match ups possible and win more fights if they want to be mentioned among the rising stars of the sport.